High-profile economic offences, particularly the case for alleged money-laundering against former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and the multi-crore Satyam scam, kept the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on its toes all through 2009

High-profile economic offences, particularly the case for alleged money-laundering against former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda and the multi-crore Satyam scam, kept the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on its toes all through 2009, reports PTI.

The ED hogged the media headlines for days together in connection with the multi-crore illegal investments and hawala case against Mr Koda and his former Cabinet colleagues.

The ED also nabbed a businessman, Naresh Jain, an alleged associate of Dawood Ibrahim, in connection with a hawala racket.

Mr Jain, who is accused of running a hawala network of over Rs5,000 crore, was first booked under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) and later arrested by the Narcotics Control Bureau in a joint operation with the ED.

Arrested in Dubai two years back in a coordinated operation with the US and European security agencies, Mr Jain is also being probed for his alleged links with international terrorist and India's most wanted man, Dawood Ibrahim.

As various agencies probed the over Rs13,000 crore Satyam scam, the ED went ahead and attached close to 285 properties worth over Rs1,000 crore of Satyam founder Ramalinga Raju, his relatives and others on the charge of money laundering.

The ED worked in close coordination with the Income-Tax Department, state vigilance departments, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Narcotics Control Bureau in order to crack various cases.

Another case the agency handled during the year was the alleged FDI violations of realty major Emmar MGF.

The ED searched 13 premises of the firm, which is constructing the 2010 Commonwealth Games village in the national capital, at a time when the firm was getting ready for an initial public offering (IPO) worth Rs3,850 crore.

US-based Yum Restaurants, which owns the franchise for KFC and Pizza Hut in India, came under the ED scanner for allegedly failing to bring in Rs390 crore ($80 million) foreign investment in the country after getting prior government approval.

In the case of Pune-based stud farm owner Hassan Ali Khan, the ED had acted in 2008 for alleged FEMA violations to the tune of over Rs39,000 crore, but investigations are going on at a snail's pace.— Yogesh Sapkale

The Indian government says it is confident that it will clean the Ganga river by 2020 and Rs15,000 crore will be spent for this purpose under the river development fund

The Indian government has expressed confidence that by 2020 the polluted Ganga river would be cleaned up. It plans to spend Rs15,000 crore for this purpose, reports PTI.

"The Union government is confident that it will clean the Ganga river by 2020 and Rs 15,000 crore will be spent for this purpose under the river development fund," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said in Varanasi.

The government plans to save the river by making it 'nirmal' (clean) and 'aviral' (free-flowing), he told reporters.

"We will not only ensure 'aviral dhara' (continuous flow of the river stream), as being demanded by several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), but also ensure 'nirmal dhara' (clean and pollution-free flow), the minister said.

Mr Ramesh said that the World Bank has also committed at least $1 billion to India as assistance for cleaning up the heavily polluted Ganga in the first phase.

The clean-up involves building modern sewage treatment, revamping drains and other measures to improve the quality of the river, which has been badly polluted by industrial chemicals, farm pesticides and other sewage.

"This is a project of enormous national importance and I am pleased that the World Bank has come forward to assist us," he said, adding that the initial assistance of $1 billion would be provided over the next four to five years.

In 1985, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi had launched a grand Ganga clean-up project—the Ganga Action Plan. But the river remains heavily polluted even after 24 years of the implementation of the project, Mr Ramesh said.

"We have made a fresh proposal to the 13th Finance Commission stating that the costs of operating and maintaining sewage treatment plants (STPs) along the Ganga river be borne by the Union government," he said.

A number of STPs built under the Ganga Action Plan-I and II were not operating to their full capacity due to financial constraints of municipal bodies. The move would give them some breathing space to reform their finances.

Asked about the failure of the Ganga Action Plans, the minister said that GAP-I and GAP-II were initiated to control direct discharge of sewage and industrial effluents into the river from 29 major and 23 small cities as well as 48 towns from Uttarakhand to West Bengal.

He said that about 260 crore litres of untreated sewage and effluents are discharged into the river daily and the NGOs working to save the Ganga and the Centre were concerned over this issue.

During his visit to the Ganga ghats, Mr Ramesh pulled up municipal commissioner Nand Kishore for their poor maintenance.

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We are enjoying decades of peace. It is easy to forget that in the same terrain we are standing free today, marauding killer mobs of thousands had roamed just a few decades ago, uprooting millions, as countries were heartlessly split.

If they could make it to their new country, through burning trains and broken bridges, the uprooted millions were herded into shanties of misery.